How to Put Google and Apple Maps to Work for Your Dealership

How findable is your automotive dealership on Google Maps and Apple Maps? And what do shoppers find when they locate you on these popular apps?

These are important questions for your team to address. More than 154 million people use Google Maps, and another 23 million use Apple Maps each month to find destinations and learn more about them[i], including reading ratings/reviews and checking for hours of operation.

If you do a search for “auto dealers near me” on Apple or Google Maps, you can better appreciate how these apps have become akin to another website for dealerships. And both Apple and Google have been making significant changes to make their wayfinding apps more useful to businesses.

Maps results typically include:

Crucial location data such as your name, address, phone number, hours of operation, most popular times to visit, and even the average amount of time people spend at your lot per visit.

Customer ratings and reviews, star ratings, comments, and the number of reviews you’ve received.

Visual content such as photos and videos of your dealership.

Offers such as coupons for your next service visit (if you choose to make the offers).

It’s crucial that you take time to maintain an active presence on these apps by:

Keeping your listing up to date. For example, if your hours change, make sure you update your listing. Respond to customer reviews, and update visual content to reflect, say, new makes and models you are promoting.

Consider marketing tools such as promoted pins to draw foot traffic to your dealership, for instance, during a major sale.

The upside to managing your location on maps apps is that you make your content more findable and useful. There is a downside to not doing so, too. If your business fails to show up on Apple and Google Maps, you might as well not exist when people search for “auto dealers near me” or do branded searches such as “Nissan dealers near me.” If your location data is inaccurate, you’re going to frustrate customers before they visit your lot. If your location lacks interesting content, you’re inviting shoppers to skip your dealership and try someone else.

Are you minding your maps?

[i] Statista, “Most popular mapping apps in the United States as of April 2018, by monthly users (in millions).”